Snot recovered first, as expected.

He lifted one hand with an easy smile, as if they had not just been shouted at by strangers in armor. "Hello. We’re Awakeneds too. We appeared in different places across the Breach and made our way here."

The short man at the center answered, his voice deep enough to jar against the rest of him.

"Yes... good. The more of us reach the tower, the better." His shoulders eased, though not by much. "Honestly, I’m relieved every time more people make it here."

Marika’s expression had lost every trace of amusement. "Has something happened? You don’t sound relieved. You sound worried."

Neo said nothing. He was already measuring the camp again, this time with more attention. Some of the Awakeneds nearby had the drained look of people who had been here for days, waiting too long with no good answer in front of them. Others, like his own group, still carried the dust and tension of recent survival. Something had happened here. That much was clear.

The short man exhaled and inclined his head.

"Forgive me. I should have introduced myself first, and perhaps welcomed you in a less hostile way. My name is Byron." He gestured behind him, toward the five at his back. "I wasn’t trying to intimidate you with them. We’ve had trouble with some of the people in the camp. Caution has become a necessity."

Max and Alice listened without interrupting, both serious now.

Neo finally spoke. Curiosity had already dug its claws in. "What kind of trouble?"

For a breath, Byron studied him, perhaps deciding whether this was a boy asking questions or someone trying to judge the weight of the place before stepping into it. In the end, he nodded.

"I’ll explain. But not out here." He turned slightly and motioned toward the tower’s base. "The area around the entrance is safe. Soul Beasts don’t reappear here. Follow me, please. You all look like you’ve dragged yourselves through hell to reach this place."

Snot gave a small shrug. "That’s about right."

They followed.

The camp opened more fully once they crossed into it. Bedrolls, low fires, salvaged supplies, little claimed spaces marked by habit rather than authority. Nobody relaxed when they passed. A few watched openly. A few looked away like they were tired of new faces and bad possibilities. Neo caught the shape of hunger in some of them.

Byron led them to a makeshift hut built against the side of a half-broken stone outcrop. It was crude, but it held. The roof was solid. The walls had been fitted together better than they had any right to be in a place like this.

Byron stepped aside and gave the structure a faint, crooked smile. "Looks like fate decided to give me a class fit for a dwarf. I can build things like this."

Snot laughed at once.

Byron took it well, mostly because he had made the joke first. "Yes, yes. Get it out of your system."

"I’m trying," Snot said, still grinning. "But you’re making it difficult."

Inside, the place was tighter than it had seemed from outside, though that also made it feel warmer. Byron offered them water first, then strips of cooked meat laid over a rough board. The smell was not especially inviting, but it was food, and nobody in this Breach had the luxury of being proud for long.

"A Soul Beast?" Max asked.

Byron nodded. "One of the smaller kinds from outside. We make do."

Neo took the water, but he had no intention of wasting time circling the real point.

"So?" he said. "The problems."

Byron drank first, set the cup down, and rested both forearms on his knees.

"Right." Byron lowered his voice a little. "There’s a group in this camp you need to be careful with. Five men. A party like yours in size, but not in temperament. They were the first to arrive here after that girl, so for a while they tried to impose their own way of doing things." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Snot’s expression thinned. "What kind of things?"

Byron rested both forearms on his knees. "Who could get close to the tower. How far people should go. What was allowed and what wasn’t. At the start, if someone didn’t follow what they said, there were arguments. Once, it got bad enough that a fight broke out. Two people ended up injured." He exhaled through his nose. "They’ve calmed down now. Or maybe they understood that pushing too hard with this many people around would only turn the whole camp against them. Either way, things are quieter than before, but I still wouldn’t trust them."

Snot nodded slowly. "Hm... I get it. Thanks for telling us." He leaned forward a little. "And what about the tower? How much do you actually know?"

Byron’s face changed a little at that, as if the question carried a different weight than the last.

"I’m not the best person to answer that." He paused, choosing the words with more care this time. "There’s a girl here who reached the highest floor anyone’s reached so far. She went up with her group."

Marika frowned. "So it has floors huh."

"Yes."

"And if they got that far, what happened?"

Byron’s mouth tightened.

"She came back alone."

The room lost what little ease remained in it.

Max stayed quiet. Alice too. Snot’s usual humor faded without needing to be pushed out. Neo said nothing either, but his attention sharpened even more.

Byron continued, his voice lower now. "She didn’t come back victorious. She came back running. Whatever happened up there wiped her group out, and whatever she saw left her... broken in a way I don’t know how to fix." He looked down at the cup in his hand for a moment before lifting his head again. "I tried speaking with her. Others did too. It goes nowhere. She won’t explain anything. Sometimes she doesn’t even seem to hear you properly when the tower is mentioned."

Marika folded her arms. "So the one person who knows the most can’t tell us anything useful."

"That’s about the shape of it."

Snot clicked his tongue softly. "And because of that everyone’s waiting."

Byron nodded. "Yes. We need more people if the tower is truly the way out, and I believe it is. Sending one small group after another would only keep feeding it lives."

Snot gave him a longer look. "You figured it out too, then."

Byron let out a tired breath. "The Breach closed. There’s not much else to figure out."

Nobody interrupted him.

He glanced toward the camp outside the hut, where muted voices and the crackle of fire drifted in through the gaps in the walls. "You can see what that knowledge did to people. A lot of them entered this place thinking it would be simple enough. A chance. A good run. Something profitable if they came out alive. Instead, groups got torn apart. Some appeared near nests. Some never made it through the jungle. Some reached the tower and found out survival and escape are two different things."

Neo finally spoke. "How many people are here now?"

Byron answered immediately. "With your group? Fifty-three."

Neo let the number sit in his head for only a breath.

"I don’t think anyone else is coming."

Byron blinked, caught off guard by how flatly he said it. He opened his mouth, but Neo continued before he could respond.

"It’s been too long. Around two hundred entered the Breach. The ones who could survive either made it here already or died before they could. If the last days were quiet, that says enough." Neo held his gaze without changing expression. "Waiting longer won’t suddenly pull more people out of the jungle."

The words stayed in the hut like something heavy set down on the floor between them.

Byron didn’t answer at once, mostly because there was nothing easy to say back to that. Before Neo’s group arrived, the place must have already felt that truth pressing in from the edges. No proof that anyone else was still fighting their way here. Their arrival as a group of five had probably felt less like something expected and more like a gift the Breach had no reason to give.

Byron lowered his eyes for a moment, and when he looked up again, some of that last stubborn stretch of hope had worn thinner.

"Yes," he said. "You’re probably right."

He leaned back slightly and rubbed at his jaw.

"Then it’s time to stop delaying the real discussion. We’ll need a plan." His tone steadied as he spoke, perhaps because plans were easier to handle than hope. "It’ll take time to organize everyone properly. A week, maybe. In that time I’ll try speaking with that girl again. If she says anything useful, even one detail, it could help us."

He glanced toward Marika and Alice. "And I’ll build huts for your group soon. Two of them. The ladies shouldn’t have to sleep packed in with you lot if it can be helped."

Marika gave him a small nod. "Thank you."

Alice followed with one of her own. "We appreciate it."

Byron waved that off. "It’s the least I can do. If we’re trapped here together, we may as well keep some order while we can."

He started to rise, but Snot wasn’t done yet.

"You said that group causes trouble over the tower." Snot tilted his head. "What exactly are they doing now?"

Byron’s expression hardened again.

"They don’t let anyone go inside."

Snot frowned. "And why?"

"They say it’s too dangerous, and that soul beasts could escape and cause havoc."

Snot snorted softly. "That doesn’t sound entirely stupid."

"No," Byron said. "It doesn’t. That’s why it’s irritating."

Neo listened without blinking.

Byron continued, "They came here first after the traumatized girl, and because of that they got control of the ground around the entrance early. Since then, they’ve acted like that gives them the right to decide who goes in and when. They’re not picking fights every hour anymore, but they still stand in the way whenever someone seriously talks about entering the tower."

Marika’s voice went colder. "So they know something."

"That’s my guess," Byron said. "Them and the girl are the only ones who should know more than the rest of us. The difference is that she can’t speak, and they won’t."

Neo leaned back slightly, though his mind had already gone elsewhere.

’What’s in that tower for them to block it now?’ He didn’t buy concern. ’Resources, perhaps. Information. A route upward they want for themselves. Or something ugly enough that even they don’t want to go back without throwing other people ahead first.’

Whatever it was, the answer wouldn’t be found sitting inside this hut listening to secondhand caution.

Byron rose properly this time. "That’s all for now. Rest. Eat. Stay clear of those five unless you have a reason not to. I’ll gather everyone when it’s time to speak."

Snot stood as well, slower than usual, his face more thoughtful now. "Understood."

The others followed.

Neo stepped out with them, but part of him had already separated from the conversation and moved ahead on its own.

Toward the tower.

Whatever was inside had shattered one survivor into silence and turned another group into self-appointed gatekeepers.

That was enough to interest him.

And sooner or later, he was going to see it for himself.